How Will Trump Admin’s Decision on Domain Names Affect You?

Domainnamewire:

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has extended the Cooperative Agreement between it and Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN). This agreement governs how Verisign is able to operate .com, which has a contract with ICANN to run.

The biggest element of the agreement is pricing. Previously, the agreement froze the wholesale price that Verisign could charge for .com domains. The new agreement still has pricing restrictions but allows for 7% price hikes in four out of every six years. Actual pricing must be negotiated with ICANN.

Verisign charging an additional 7% means registrars could be paying up to 31% more on .coms every 6 years. So in turn, registrars will then charge customers more to cover their costs.

Think about the people who have large numbers of .com domains they want to sell. With the increased prices will buyers still be interested? How about those looking to purchase several .coms? That could get very pricey and might have them looking for other TLD options. The Trump admin decision is great for Verisign and ICANN but unfortunately not so much for consumers and domain registrars.